This just in: The philanthropic family foundation seeded by profits from the Subway sandwich chain has reached the billion-dollar valuation mark. The Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation (PCLB), created in 1999 by Subway cofounder Peter Buck and his wife, Carmen, has reported assets of $1.03 billion as of 2024. What’s new about another billion-dollar foundation? Not all that much. The story, as we see it, is that it’s no longer that big of a story. Certainly, $1.03 billion adds up to a lot of Meatball Marinara. But in the context of today’s fortunes, a foundation of this scale just isn’t as rare as it used to be.
We’ve all been following the reasons behind the growth of billion-dollar philanthropy, such as the massive wealth creation that has been happening since the early 1980s. Growth in the stock market has amplified policies that make it easy for the rich to get richer — low taxes, weak unions and regulation — with all of this spawned and spurred on by technology and globalization.
The numbers tell the story: When the Forbes 400 list debuted in 1982, it listed 14 billionaires. Today, it would take more than two Forbes 400 lists for the billionaires alone. There are now over 3,000 billionaires in the world, the most ever recorded, with 902 of these in the U.S.
Today’s billionaires are also richer than those in the now-modest-seeming 1980s. In 1982, the richest person on the Forbes list, shipping and oil magnate Daniel Keith Ludwig, had a net worth of $2 billion (around $6.6 billion today). In 2025, Elon Musk topped the Forbes list with a $342 billion fortune (which Forbes now estimates at well over $100 billion more than that). And Larry Ellison briefly surpassed him earlier this month. Some of this wealth is wending its way into philanthropy, including to seed and support foundations such as PCLB. The foundation exemplifies a characteristic of today’s mega foundations: many have the fortune but not the fame of old-timey glitzy givers from Gilded Age families, or new and notorious Wall Streeters or tech entrepreneurs.
In the past, a foundation of this size would have been notable and likely well known, but there are so many now that it’s hard to keep track. My colleague Michael Kavate has coined the term “stealth philanthropies” to describe foundations with 10-digit endowments, yet no website, LinkedIn page or much visibility on the web.
The increasing number of billion-dollar foundations makes us see the arrival of this latest one as almost commonplace. It’s like, “Oh, another massive foundation story. Where’s the beef?”
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What the Subway fortune is likely to fund
Not that Subway itself is a stealth purveyor of product. The shops are everywhere. Started by former nuclear physicist Peter Buck and the then-17-year-old Fred DeLuca in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1965, Subway today is one of the largest “quick service” restaurant brands. By its own counting, it has nearly 37,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries and territories, each owned by individual franchisors. In contrast, that other “healthy” fast food brand, Chipotle, has just over 3,700 branches. Subway also is a wealth generator for the individual franchise owners and part of the ongoing evolution and global expansion of that business model.
The Bucks established the foundation in 1999. After Peter Buck’s death in 2021, it got super-sized. Peter Buck left 50% of the still-privately owned chain to the foundation in his will; that bequest was worth nearly $5 billion by 2023, when the company was sold for an estimated $9.6 billion to Roark Capital. That’s a lot of Veggie Delite, any way you slice it.”
PCLB has long supported public education, land conservation, honest journalism and the fostering of “long-term, high-impact partnerships in New York and Connecticut.” Its website lists five areas of grantmaking — education, outdoors, science, medicine and family projects — and funds in these areas with a focus on the “broad mission of giving motivated people the tools they need to help themselves.” It prefers to make multi-year, general operating grants, though it also gives restricted grants for specific geographic areas or areas of work, as well as some program-related grants and “Big Bets.”
Big grants are needed now, as the conditions that concentrate wealth at the top are growing, alongside wounding cuts to many of the foundation’s key areas of concern. PCLB made more than a dozen education grants of $1 million or more in 2025, including $10 million to Kipp Public Schools. The dismantling of the Department of Education, as my colleague Connie Matthiessen wrote, points to a need for continued and even increased investment.
Or take medicine: The PCLB has historically supported a “limited number of grantees” who work on global access to medical care. With the recent cuts to USAID, that “limited” number could beneficially grow to include multitudes. The need is great in the U.S., too. In 2025, the foundation made grants topping $3 million to Medecins Sans Frontiers U.S.A., and smaller grants to healthcare groups in Maine. With pending cuts to Medicaid and projected huge leaps in health insurance costs under this administration, funding medical support matters from Maine to California — and every state in between.
Indeed, this funder cares about so many issues under attack in the U.S. right now that its low profile may serve as an advantage and allow it to make important investments without threat of retaliatory intervention by the federal government. If there’s a plus side to the rise of the billionaire dollar stealth philanthropy, that’s it.
Note (9/22/25): This piece has been updated to clarify that Peter Buck’s 2021 bequest of 50% of Subway to the foundation was worth nearly $5 billion by 2023, when the company was sold for an estimated $9.6 billion to Roark Capital.
